Dear people,
I am writing this to you in an effort to address a serious issue that has been coming up a lot recently. The issue of Islamophobia has been a major topic in our present time. With a lot of violence going on from terrorist attacks and bombings, Islamophobia is increasing because many people tend to lean to one side of the story in blaming the people behind these brutal attacks and the media is to be blamed. Whenever an act of terror or a shooting takes place, many of Muslims watch news and the media coverage with fear hoping that the suspect is not a Muslim.It’s not the that the suspect is more likely to be a muslim but with the unfair media coverage on terrorism and labeling the suspects.It seems like it is more outrages and biased whenever an act of terror occurs by a Muslim rather than it’s by other races. In the comic book “Ms.Marvel”, the main character is Kamal, a Muslim Pakistani-American superhero, and a teenage girl who struggles with her identity because of her faith and family. Kamala makes a significant reference to an important belief that she learns from her family and faith.This belief comes from the holy Quran.Before Kamal started saving lives she mentioned a small verse from the Quran when she said “Whoever kills one person, it is as if he has killed all of mankind and whoever saves one person, it is as if he has saved all of mankind.” This small teaching of the Quran that Kamal and millions of muslims believe in is important to prove that Islam is a religion of peace and terrorism does not belong in Islam. As a Muslim, I’m tired of condemning terrorist attacks being carried out by sick and vicious people.It is frustrating having to explain that people use Islam for their nonsense ideology when in reality Muslims are being murdered by the same terrorists.It is unfair seeing many attacks being carried out not getting the same media coverage and labeling for the reason that the suspect is a non-Muslim.I’m tired of seeing a religion of 1.6 believers get blamed whenever a terrorist attack occurs.Islam is a law, and a system.And a Muslim is an individual who makes the profession that they belong or they are attached to that system. Having said that, do you judge a system by the people who say that they are a part of it?,No you don’t.For example, you can’t not blame a entire car company for accident that was committed by a reckless driver who made the wrong actions and choices.Therefore, it is unjustified to blame a whole religion because of wrong actions taken by violent people. All things considered, we can all agree that terrorism is a dangerous threat.However, it is not right to blame an entire faith to the actions of a small portion of people who hijack the name of the religion to spread their violent objective.As a Muslim, I beg you all to not ignore the facts and to always look at issues from all different sides.We can not let the media coverage propagandize us from the truth and create hatred among us.
Sincerely,
Fouzi Nagi
New York City
Artist Statement
Throughout this project I learned to write a well and organized letter. I also learned to use my own thoughts and experiences to make a good argument.Another important lesson I learned is to always look at problems from different perspectives.Lastly, I learned that there are deep and hidden themes in sentences.I could use some of these things that learned in different ways.For future assignments, I will spend more time reading sentences to extract the main ideas.I could also use my thoughts to expand on arguments to make theme more persuasive.I chose to write a letter on “Islamophobia” because there was an important part of the comic that was relative to this topic.As a Muslim, a letter to address Islamophobia is was necessary especially in our present time.I think writing a letter to people to address an issue was important and it helped me to analyze the comic more because I can relate to the topic.I could have pushed my analysis further by providing more arguments and examples.The rhetorical choice that I did was including real life and logical reasoning to support my argument and I think it made my thesis more effective.For my future assignments I will bring some rhetorical insights like using my own experiences, using logical reasoning, and deep explanation of the argument.